


Think It. Say It.

by colormetheworld



Series: Tricks [2]
Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 05:52:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13991847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colormetheworld/pseuds/colormetheworld
Summary: Maura wants to say the words. Jane beats her to it.





	Think It. Say It.

 

“So my brother’s bringing his new girlfriend, so that will hopefully take the pressure off of us.”

Maura smiles at her reflection in the little mirror, before pushing the sunshade back into place.

“I’m don’t feel pressure,” Maura says for the seventh time. “I’m not nervous to meet your family.” She glances at Jane. “Are you?”

“Yes,” Jane says, and then she seems to realize that this sounds wrong. “I mean, I’m not nervous because of you. I just don’t want anyone to treat you badly.”

“That’s sweet of you,” Maura says, “but I’ve met Frankie several times already, and I’ve met your mother.”

“You talked to my mother for about three minutes,” Jane says with a snort. “She didn’t have a chance to sink her claws in.”

In the back, Mae giggles at the expression.

Jane glances at her fondly in the rearview mirror, though her expression fades back into worry before long.

“Seriously,” she says after a moment. “If you want to postpone, then I’m sure we can make something up.”

“No we can’t,” Maura says. She reaches over the gearshift to squeeze Jane’s leg. “And I don’t want to. I want to meet everyone.”

“My parents might fight,” Jane says. “It’s just recent that Frank’s been coming to these things again. “Ma says it’s important for TJ to know his grandfather.”

“She’s right,” Maura says. “And I’m looking forward to it. Aren’t you?” It’s a genuine question. Maura had been sure that their relationship was heading in the ‘meet the parents’ direction, but Jane always seems to be half a step behind her.

“If  you’d rather we wait,” she begins.

“I wouldn’t,” Jane says quickly, and although it seems like she wants to say more, she doesn’t continue.

The car is silent for the next three minutes, until they pull into the parking lot of the park.

Jane turns to look at Mae. “Ready?” she asks.

“Ready?”

“Got the pie?”

Mae lifts the tin foil covered platter on her lap. “Got it!”

“Then let’s hit it!”

The picnic area where the Rizzoli’s are scheduled to meet is down a little gravel path that winds around the outside of the municipal park’s playing fields. Mae lets Jane take the pie from her so that she can run ahead to look at the plant life, calling back genus and species to her mother as she goes.

“Hey,” Jane calls Mae to her as they walk down the gravel path that leads to the picnic tables. “I want to tell you something okay?”

Mae nods, grinning up at Jane excitedly.

“My little brother Tommy, he has a kid your age. Remember I told you that?”

Mae gives Jane a look that makes her chuckle.

“Right,” Jane says. “You remember everything. Well okay, remember this. TJ is a good kid. I think you guys are gonna be friends. But he is a _boy_ , and therefore less mature.”

Jane stops walking so that she can squat down to Mae level. She looks her in the eye.

“If he says anything mean? Or if you guys are playing and he’s rough…or unfair, you come tell me, okay?”

Mae bites her lip. “Isn’t that tattling?” she asks after a moment. Maura smiles.

“No,” Jane says. “because he won’t know that you said anything. I’ll maybe suggest you guys play a new game, or invite you to hang out with me instead, see?”

Mae frowns a little, looking nervous. “Do you think he won’t like me?” she asks.

Jane shakes her head immediately. “No, kiddo, that’s not it at all.” She reaches out to take Mae’s hand.

“I just know that TJ has never been around anybody who’s as smart, or funny, or pretty as you. And when Rizzoli’s get around people like that, it can make their brains go all weird. Just look at me and your mom.”

This makes Mae laugh. She looks over her shoulder at Maura.

“What I really want you to know, is that if something happens at this picnic that you don’t like, not just with TJ, but with anybody, you can tell me or your mom. Just because they’re my family doesn’t mean you can’t. Okay?”

If Maura believed that there was one moment, above every other, that made one person fall in love with another, then this would be hers. She would not have been able to verbalize the fear that Jane would automatically side with her family should any argument arise.

She had not allowed herself to dwell on the worry that Mae’s precocious nature would create a problem.

But Jane had somehow seen, and understood.

Mae nods, and Jane stands up, and they begin to walk again.

When Mae has once again gotten far enough ahead that she won’t hear them, Maura takes Jane’s hand, leaning to kiss her shoulder.

“Was that alright?” Jane asks, glancing at her hopefully. “I didn’t want to worry her more…But I couldn’t just let her think she’d be heading into a sea of strangers all alone.”

 _I love you_ , Maura thinks.

“You are a wonderful detective,” she says. “You are amazing. That was amazing. Thank you.”

Jane smiles, giving her hand a squeeze, and as they turn the bend and the tables come into view, Jane leans closer to her.

“I know I was talking to Mae,” she says under her breath. “But I meant her mother to hear too.”

Maura turns too look at Jane, surprised, and is met with her lips.

“I’m with you,” she says, when they part.

Maura can’t overcome her speechlessness fast enough to respond.

“Hey! Look who finally decided to show!” a man with dark hair and lined, familiar eyes is pushing himself up from one of the closer tables.

“Hey Pop,” Jane calls. Her hand jumps in Maura’s but does not let go. “Sorry we’re late, I got held up at the precinct.”

Jane’s father doesn’t seem to have heard her. He is looking at Maura, eyebrows raised in interest.

“Pop,” Jane says slowly. “This is Dr. Maura Isles. Maura, my father Frank.”

“Doctor!” Franke says, sounding impressed. “No kidding!” He turns, calling out to a group of people helping themselves to barbecue nearby.

“Tommy, lookit the doctor that your sister nabbed. Hot _and_ smart, son! Give her your beer!”

Maura looks at Jane for an indication of how to feel about a sentence that appears to have a 3:1 insult compliment ratio.

She decides that barely concealed fury would not be the best choice for her.

“And this is Mae,” Jane says through gritted teeth. She gestures behind her to where Mae is hanging back. 

“She’s Maura’s daughter.”

Frank gestures Mae closer, and Maura feels Jane take a tiny step forward too.

_I love you._

But all that Frank does is pulls a shiny silver dollar out of Mae’s ear. She goes wide-eyed amazed just like any child would, and Jane takes Maura’s hand again and squeezes it, the anger vanished.

“There’s my Janie!”

Angela Rizzoli is shorter than her daughter, but she has the same dark hair and long fingers. She hugs Maura tightly, and then Mae, and practically drags them over to the table heaped with food, talking the whole time.

“...And she said it was too cold to have Sunday Dinner outside, so I said, okay, Officer Smartypants, we’ll have a lunch instead, in the park. And that doesn’t leave you any excuse not to bring that friend of yours you’re always going on and on about.”

“Ma,” Jane says, following along with Mae. “Maura is my girlfriend.”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Rizzoli,” Mae speaks up quietly. “Jane is a Detective.”

……

……

The afternoon goes as well as Maura has expected it to, which means it is much more successful than Jane anticipates.

There are several high points that vie for the top spot by the time the Rizzoli’s finally start to pack up.

TJ, the son of Jane’s youngest brother, is everything Jane told Mae he might be, loud and brash like his father. A show-off in the way Jane might also have been when she was young.

But the detective gets them talking about Harry Potter (“Oh, I forgot you and your mom were reading those books, TJ. I think Mae just finished the fifth one…right Mae?), and by the end of the meal, TJ is asking his mom if Mae can come over to watch the movies with them, and Mae looks both stunned and delighted at making a friend.

Frankie has brought his latest girlfriend to the meeting as well, and it is clear to Maura from the way the woman is treated, that none of his romantic interests have lasted very long. Frank Sr. switches between implying that this new woman, Riley, is too good looking for his eldest son, and asking Frankie why he’d want to tie himself down anyway.

“She’s not pregnant is she?” He jabs at one point.

Angela misses the barb, turning wide hopeful eyes to Frankie, but Jane pulls the beer bottle out of her father’s hand and dumps the remains into the grass.

“That’s enough of that for today,” she says mildly. And then to Riley, “These are only every month, and you don’t have to come to any after this one until Christmas.”

Maura spends almost an hour talking to the young woman about forensic science, and it is only during a lull in the conversation that she realizes that Jane instigated this conversation too.

Angela calls Maura Jane’s friend at least a dozen more times.

Jane does not miss a chance to correct her, even if it means circling back around in the conversation.

Jane pulls off her hoodie and drapes it over Maura’s shoulders when the light begins to fade.

Maura wants to say _I love you_ so badly that it is beginning to feel like a neck ache.  

.

“Mae! Tell Tommy Junior you will see him next weekend! I’ve already set it up with his mother. Come on, darling, it’s time to go!”

She has never had to cajole her daughter away from other children.

Mae turns reluctantly from TJ, and begins trudging toward her. Mauara watches her come, trying to think of the last time she’d had to think about getting a grass stain out of her little girl’s only pair of blue jeans.

“Hey, Maura?”

Jane has come up behind her.

Maura turns, determined to tell Jane how she feels right then and there.

“Mae is going to need another pair of jeans,” she says.

Jane looks out at Mae, walking as slowly as possible, still talking to TJ.

She frowns. “Sorry,” she says. “TJ loves to rough house. I can replace-”

“No!” Maura says, cursing herself. “It’s a good thing. I meant it as a good thing.”

“Oh.”

They are silent. Maura can feel Jane looking at her, even though she is staring at the ground.

“Jane-” she begins again, but the detective cuts her off.

“I love you.”

Maura’s head jerks up. “What?”

Jane stares at her, panicked. “No!” she says. “I just…shit. I mean. I do! But I meant to ask you to go to dinner tonight. Fuck!”

Jane runs a hand through her hair.

“I’d just been thinking it all day!” she says, sounding close to tears. “I mean, you were so nice to Riley, and you let my Dad like… _stare_ at your legs all day, which is just…beyond gross. If I ever ogle you like that, Mo, I _need_ you to punch me. It’s sick…” she breaks off like she’s forgotten her point.

“You love me?” Maura asks, stepping up to her.

Jane blinks at her. A hint of color is visible in her cheeks. “Yeah,” she says quietly. “I really do. I love Mae. And I’m in love with you.”

Maura crooks a finger at Jane, who grins as she steps closer, letting Maura hook her hands around her neck.

“I love you too.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh you guys, what is happening to me. It's too sweet. I can't. What have I become.


End file.
